This invention relates to a wide-area-network-accessible (WAN-accessible) account system and, more particularly, to a system for allowing an account participant to access a account, e.g., to transfer value to a first account from a second account, via a device attached to a WAN.
Single card account systems, such as university identification card systems, perform a variety of useful functions. In the university context, a university community member can use their identification card for identification and for facilities access. Importantly, a cardholder can also use their card purchase products and/or services from a variety of sources such as copying machines, vending machines, dining services, the university book store, library services, and athletic department services. Other institutions such as large companies can use a single card account system in a similar way.
However, universities and other institutions presently provide staff, office space, and facilities to assist community members in depositing money into a particular account. Furthermore, community members typically submit their money during business hours or use regular mail. As a result there is often a significant lag between the first occurrence of a desire to add a specified amount to a particular account and the crediting of that specified amount to the particular account.
For the foregoing reasons, it is an object of the invention to provide a value transfer system that allows an authorized community member greater access to the community's single card system. It is another object of the invention to provide ubiquitous or global access (e.g., from a variety of personal computers and other personal digital assistants connected to the Internet) to a value transfer system. It is still another object of the invention to provide access to a community's value transfer system twenty-four-hours-a-day, three-hundred-sixty-five-days-a-year. Further, it is another object of the invention to provide cardholders instant access to their deposited funds.
Other objects of the invention will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.